Integrity means that you are honest and truthful in what you say or do. You put honesty, sense of duty, and sound moral principles above all else. Be absolutely honest and truthful at all times. Stand up for what you believe to be right.
Episode Transcription [INTRO]
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Alex
Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset, and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.
Professor Paul
Continuing on, and thank you to Pop Evil for giving us permission to use that awesome intro music. It’s rockin’, it gets you moving in the morning, at least I hope it gets you moving in the morning. I’ve been listening to this show ever since we released it a month ago, and it still gets me excited. Laugh I hope that you find it gets you motivated as well. Alright continuing on with the United States Marine Corps Leadership Traits, the traits that every Leader should exhibit. The next one in JJDIDTIEBUCKLE, is the I in TIE, and that is Integrity.
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Integrity means that you are Honest and Truthful, in what you say or do. You put Honest, sense of Duty, and sound Moral Principles above all else. Wow, that’s a big one right? If you’re going to be a Leader, remember this isn’t about being a Boss, and Telling people what to do. This is about being a Leader that Inspires others, a Leader that people will look up to, a Leader that people will voluntarily follow, and if you want people to voluntarily follow you, look up to you, and you want to Motivate them, you need to display Integrity. Again, how many times have we looked at our nation’s Leaders, we use that term when it comes to Politicians, we say “Our Nation’s Leaders”, and we look at them now that we’ve been examining the Marine Corps Leadership Traits, how many times have you examined a politician or looked at a politician or something they said or did, and you now apply the Leadership Trait to them and say “Hmm… Integrity.”
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You mean being Honest and Truthful in what you say and do. A sense of Duty, Honesty and sound Moral principles? There are many people who have been elected to office who Integrity is a completely foreign thing. They don’t base their decisions on what is the Honest and Truthful thing to do, they don’t base their decisions on a sense of Duty or Moral principle, they base their decisions on political expediency, and how can they get the most for themselves? Or how can they promise people more free stuff, so they can get more votes and stay in power.
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One of my favorite examples of Integrity is a coffee cup story, and probably, oh my Blasphemy going on 15 years ago. I had a coffee cup and it came from a company called Spyderco, they make knives, and it was one of those clear glass coffee cups. You don’t see those very often, but it was colored glass, it was clear, and at the bottom of the cup, when you tipped it up you looked at the bottom of the cup, it said the following words; Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one else is looking, and I love that definition of Integrity.
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So if you come to a crossroad and you are questioning if you are genuinely applying Integrity. It means doing the right thing, doing your best, even though no one’s standing around watching you, even when no one can see you do it. Doing your best even when noone is watching. When I was a police officer, again many moons ago, I would have to, on frequent occasion, deal with youthful offenders, deal with young people who were not on the right track. They weren’t murderers or rapists or kidnappers yet, but a lot of them were not exercising sound moral principles or good judgement.
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I would have the opportunity to speak with them, and one of the speeches that I would give them is, “Do you know what Integrity means?” and most of the time they get that glossed over look. “Duuuuuh… If I say yes will you shut up?” No, and I would give them the Integrity speech and say “Look, as you move on with your life, and you find yourself in a position where you can do wrong, where you could steal, where you could take something that didn’t belong to you. Take a second and ask yourself, or-” and you know the thing is, where I am now, I have no idea whether those young miscreants, whether they fixed themselves or whether they’re like “That old cop dude is full of crap and he don’t know what he’s talking about.” and they move on, become dirtbags and now they’re wards of the state.
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But, Integrity. What does the Marine Corps say about improving your Integrity? Well, be absolutely honest and truthful at all times. Stand up for what you believe to be right. Truthful and Honest at all times, is that difficult? I’m not trying to say you guys are liars, or I’m a liar or lying is good, how often do we skirt the truth in order to save feelings? Or to ease the burden of hurt feelings so we skirt around the truth, or we Laugh shall we say, omit the truth. The omission of truth is still a lie. MMmmmm… I know, I know, and this is something we all have to work on I think.
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If you’re going to be a leader because, let’s face facts, if you’re put in a Leadership position and your troops, your kids, your workers, whoever it is you’re in a leadership position over, if they discover you lack Integrity or they discover you’re skirting the truth, or maybe omitting the truth to them, they’re not going to look up to you. They’re not gonna respect you and they’re less likely to follow you, and not only that but in the case of children, they’re going to mimic you. Remember it doesn’t matter what you tell your kids, it’s what you show them. That’s what they’re going to do.
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So Integrity, pretty big thing, and I’m gonna have to share a very sad story with you guys. My Integrity coffee cup broke, I don’t know if it fell off the counter or it fell off the kitchen table, but fell, and it broke, and I don’t have it anymore. Laugh I’m pretty sure they only did 1 run of those coffee cups, those Integrity coffee cups. But even though the cup is gone, the lesson has stuck with me and that is a lesson I’ve shared. I’ve been sharing it for probably 15+ years or more. So Integrity, doing the right thing even though no one else is looking. Honesty, sense of Duty and sound Moral principles.
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I know, I’m weighing heavy on your shoulders, giving you a lot to think about, aren’t I? But who said being a Leader was easy? Being a Leader is not easy, and sometimes you need to do difficult things, sometimes you need to do that Gut Check when it comes to being a Leader, in order to do self improvement, to exercise self improvement, and that’s what we’re all about here. So positive Morning Mindset stuff, that’s all I have to say about that. Now tomorrow, we’re going to be back with the E in TIE, and the E in TIE is Enthusiasm. So I want you to Enthusiastically look forward to the next episode of Morning Mindset. Until then I am your host Paul Markel, and I’ll talk to you again, real soon.
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